Aviary is a weird old service. It’s a web-based photo-editing suite that runs in HTML (and therefore the iPhone and iPad), but there’s no actual Aviary site where you can upload images and fiddle with them.

Previously, the easiest way to get access was to go to Flickr, but since nobody uses Flickr anymore, that was kind of lame. Now, though, somebody has licensed the Aviary APIs and made an iOS app. Right now it’s iPhone-only, but it’s pretty damn good.

Like every other photo editor, you can tweak brightness, contrast and all the other usual aspects of a picture, as well as cropping and adding special effects. Unlike most of them, though, the interface is fantastic.

It starts with the first page. You have three buttons: camera, photo library access or “edit this photo.” Above these buttons are the most recent pictures in your camera roll, in big, cover-flow style. This is fantastic because a) it avoids the terrible iOS photo picker and b) in almost every case the photo you want to edit is one of the most recent.

When editing, you can pick modules from the tabs across the bottom, and then tap to apply the various effects or adjustments. Tapping a button again deselects the effect for quick A/B comparisons, and the effects are all applied instantaneously.

Even better, you can choose to hide various modules and reorder those you do want, putting the most important ones together on the first page.

It would be almost perfect but for a couple of things. There is no “open in…” option – photos are just saved to the camera roll. And there is no way to resize an image, although this feature seems to be lacking in almost every editing app I try.

Still, you should go grab it, if only to play around – Aviary is free, with some in-app purchases for extra grunge filters. Also available on Android.